I know it must happen, carrying a squirmy little one and he/she gets out of the hold and drops to the ground taking a hard fall.
I’m wondering about the frequency that this happens, is it that most people have been dropped, or just a small number of people? I am particularly interested in the %age that takes a very hard fall, one that they would associate with pain and then perhaps shows fear/insecurity in being held after the fall.
I don’t know that a hard fall from a parent’s arms would make a small child be afraid of being held. If we are talking about the age when a 4 ft fall is a “very hard fall” we are talking about very young babies, ones that are held much of the time. I am not sure they’d identify the “being held” as the stimulus that led to the fall.
I entered the Earth’s atmosphere pretty hard the first time I attempted it. That hurt. Caused some fear. Fear is the Mind Killer. Next time, I sheared off momentum with an Earth/Moon* loop maneuver first.
My sister dropped me when I was three days old. She was ten… and remembers it like it was yesterday. I tripped carrying my five month old son. He hit his head pretty good, and I still have a wicked scar on my hand. But as far as I know, he didn’t make the connection between falling and being held. It seems all he wants is for me to hold him.
My college roommate claimed that he had fractured his skull when he was less than 2 years old, after his uncle accidentally dropped him on the sidewalk.
My mother wiped out her bike with both my sister and I on the back when we were very young. I have no recollection of this incident, but I do associate it with the local library, since my mother was traumatized enough to bring it up whenever we went to the library.
My dad put me in a car seat precariously perched on a pile of newpapers on top of a waist-high cabinet. I kicked myself off, landed on a concrete floor, and cracked my skull open.
I fell off a bed after being left there unsupervised…my grandmother turned her back, and I rolled off. I was tiny when it happened. There was no lasting damage, other than my mom being really, really shaken by the event.
I was 3 when we moved into our new house. They still hadn’t put a railing on the basement stairs. So I fell off the top step, landing on my head onto the cement basement floor. I remember them taking me to the hospital. I have no idea whether there was a diagnosis or anything.
My nanny gave me a penetrating wound below the lower lip. The two-stitch scar is visible 50 years later. It sprouts hair, which is a bother if I use a straight razor when shaving. I gave up and switched to triple blades.
The first time I walked on my own (they tell me), I got out of my crib, walked past my mother (who was talking on the kitchen telephone) and right to the basement door, which had been thoughtfully opened by our dog. I promptly fell down the stairs. Twelve of them.
They rushed me to the doctor, where my father told them to x-ray me.
“What part of him?”
“ALL of him!”
As far as I know, it didn’t affect me adversely. This is why they make kid skeletons out of cartilage.
I’ve had plenty of other bad things happen to me as a kid. I’ll tell you about them sometime.